Searching by Library Group

Scope of Search

When using the search box in West km, you can restrict your search to particular groups of documents. For example, if you have both West km for Litigation and West km for Transactions, you might want to restrict your search to litigation documents, transactions documents, or both. Or you might want to restrict your search to documents in particular office locations or practice areas.

Before running your search, click the list next to the search box at the top of the page. In the Scope of Search dialog box, select the content and library groups you want to search and click Save.

Browsing

You can easily browse content in a particular library group from the Home page.

In the Browse section, click a libraries tab (e.g., Litigation Libraries). The documents in that library group are displayed. In addition, a corresponding tabbed text box is displayed at the top of the page. To search this library group, type your search in the text box and click Search.

Searching by Citation

KeyCite is the citation service that allows you to quickly determine whether cases, statutes, regulations, or administrative decisions are good law and find other sources that cite them.

In West km, the power of KeyCite is integrated with your organization's internal documents so that you can

build a list of your organization's citing documents

view the extent to which a citing document discusses a cited document

easily evaluate the validity of cases, statutes, regulations, or administrative decisions that are cited in your organization's documents

From the Search Box

You can easily retrieve a list of your organization's documents that cite a particular WestlawNext document.

Just type the KeyCite command (kc: or keycite:), followed by the citation, in the search box at the top of the page and click Search.

Note: When typing a citation, include spaces in the format, such as between the volume number, publication, and page number, and between the statutory abbreviation and section number (e.g., type kc: 501 us 380, not kc: 501us380).

From a Document

When you are viewing one of your organization's documents in West km, the KM icon (
) appears after each citation that is used in other indexed West km documents at your organization.

Just click the KM icon to view the citing documents.

KeyCite Status Flags

West km adds a KeyCite status flag next to each citation in your document that has available KeyCite information. These flags allow you to easily evaluate the validity of a case, statute, regulation, or administrative decision.

Searching with KeySearch

In West km for Litigation, KeySearch can help you easily retrieve documents at your organization that are relevant to a legal topic. The following techniques are used to ensure that KeySearch retrieves comprehensive, reliable, and relevant documents at your organization:

In the West km interface, click the KeySearch tab. The KeySearch page is displayed.

Browse the list of KeySearch topics and subtopics by clicking the Browse icons () or hypertext links.

If displayed, numbers after each topic indicate the number of unique documents at your organization that were assigned to that topic and its subtopics by automatic or manual classification. (This count does not include documents retrieved using full-text searching.)

Change the scope of your search to particular library groups, if desired (see Scope of Search).

When you click a KeySearch topic, a corresponding tabbed text box is displayed at the top of the page.

To display all documents in that KeySearch topic, leave the text box blank and click Search.

To search that KeySearch topic, type your search in the text box and click Search.

The documents relevant to the KeySearch topic you selected are displayed.